BY ARTHUR PESCAN//
Fresh off the January release of their sixteenth and latest album, UR FUN, indie favorites of Montreal will headline the District’s 9:30 Club on March 2. Doors open at 7 PM; tickets start at $25.
UR FUN sees a welcome twist from front man and founder Kevin Barnes, who exclusively wrote and recorded the album. His budding romance with fellow songwriter Christina Schneider of Locate S, 1, is central – while comfort in past Of Montreal offerings was found in the existential dread of Barnes’ psychedelia, this album gives you hope for romantic escape from the condition commonly known as life. The sardonic lyrics you expect from Of Montreal still bite just as deep on UR FUN – the opening track “Peace to All Freaks” and the Bowie-esque “Don’t Let Me Die In America” features Barnes employing wit as a scalpel to the world.
The comparison will always be made with each passing album to 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, a supreme study in mental poles that urges the listener to go figure out the mind that wrote it. However, on this newest release, Barnes brings less to give more – the album floats through retro-pop arrangements and straightforward hooks – fans are welcomed into Barnes’ mind once more, this time to mire in the bliss of romance and life with him. The result – a numbing apathy welcome in the burning world that is 2020.